Zimbabwe: Commercial Tobacco Planting Surpasses 2,500ha Mark

Source from:  Manica Post  10/18/2013

COMMERCIAL farmers in Manicaland have intensified the planting of irrigated tobacco, with authorities in the province hinting that they had exceeded the 2 500-hectare mark by Wednesday this week. Planting started on September 1. The bulk of the crop was planted in Makoni, Mutare and Mutasa districts.

Some farmers also took advantage of the current wet spell to intensify both tobacco planting and land preparations.

Manicaland is generally targeting to put at least 20 000ha under tobacco, up from 17 000 last year following an upsurge in the number of farmers taking up the crop in anticipation of a return for their investment following huge spin-offs fetched by the crop at the auction floors this year.

Manicaland is the hub of tobacco production in Zimbabwe and accounts for the largest chunk of the projected national tobacco output.

Manicaland is the major tobacco exporter in the country and the bulk of its farmers concentrate on Virginia, which accounts for more than 95 percent.

Both communal and commercial farmers have embraced modern irrigation technology and contract farming system to maximise productivity.

A survey by The Manica Post in Makoni District, which is the province's hub of tobacco farming, established that farmers were busy planting, while their small-scale counterparts were tending their nurseries in readiness for dryland tobacco planting starting mid-October.

Agritex head for Manicaland Mr Godfery Mamhare said preparations were going on well and appealed to the power utility, Zesa, to ensure that there was no disruption of power supply, which is critical for irrigated tobacco.

Tobacco farmers have been facing a number of challenges in the previous seasons ranging from failure to meet the September 1 deadline due to power outages.

Mr Mamhare urged farmers taking up irrigated tobacco to wind up operations by end of this month so that it enjoys high humidity and sunshine which are needed for better quality.

He also urged farmers to apply recommended fertiliser quantities to ensure high quality crop.

"We are urging all farmers to apply the recommended 12 to 14 bags of Compound C per hectare. We have situations where farmers do short cuts and end up applying between five and six bags per hectare.

"This is below the required amount of fertiliser and the end product will be a poor and inferior leaf size which does not fetch much on the market," said Mr Mamhare.

"Farmers must also plant according to the available labour because tobacco demands is labour intensive. We have had situations where the crop is left to rot in the field as farmers struggle to hire labour," said Mr Mamhare.

Zimbabwe Tobacco Seed Association national chairman Mr David Mutasa, of Matambura Farm in Makoni, bemoaned the fact that most tobacco contractors were dumping farmers who failed to service their loans last season.

Most farmers were left counting losses following a mid-season huge downpour that led to leaching of nutrients.

As a result, most farmers had no additional fertiliser to salvage their crop, leading to the accruing of huge losses.

"Those who failed to service their loans are stranded because their contracts have not been renewed. This is a major setback as a lot of farmers were affected this way.

"The banks have not helped matters either as nothing is coming from them, resulting in a lot of farmers failing to make meaningful progress," said Mr Mutasa.

Mr Mutasa said as a result, tobacco contracting companies had recruited new farmers, while dumping old ones.

"They are using farmers like tissues. They need them when things are good and dump them later.

"The tobacco contract system needs to be addressed at national level because natural disasters like what happened last year should not be taken down upon farmers," he added.

He said though some new tobacco farmers lacked sound farming knowledge, the gap could be bridged through training in the technical aspects of irrigation, community organisation and marketing, access to credit, capital or land.

He said field days may also be used to prepare them into better farmers. Enditem